Poetry and fiction by a physicist from the dark side

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Drying our wings

When even hell has closed its doors
we’re waiting by the river shore
empty purses, swaying, waiting.
saying: we cannot pay the ferryman.
And every night the river suicides
will bring us back again.
Drying our wings at dawn.

The boys of town are hiding,
behind the sewer main,
dream between our legs,
They’re growing to be men,
with miner’s callous hands
soon to soil our wings.

I didn’t think of prostitutes until I read your comment, Bjorn, but then the poem seemed less surreal and more of a gritty realism that could be a painting of Cannery Row as well as the dock to the underworld.

Haunting and mesmerizing. The “crack” of rhyme/near rhyme throughout (doors-shore, sway-waiting-saying, again-main, hiding-behind . . .) is masterful and, for me (even though it is, indeed, free verse) imparts a dirge like incantation to the piece.